Scrapyard finds

From: Bob Shannon <bshannon_at_tiac.net>
Date: Mon Jul 2 18:43:07 2001

Ohhh, and RCA 703 eh?

I've been after an RCA 704 for a long while, for no good reason.
Personally, I'd jump on the 703 in a heartbeat. What kind of shape is
it in?

"Jeffrey S. Sharp" wrote:

> I went to a grandpa-of-a-friend-of-a-friend's scrapyard Saturday.
> It was one of those disappointing wish-you-were-here-a-month-ago
> visits. Yes, the guy did have a bunch of Univac stuff. The key
> word here is 'did'. About a month ago, he loaded it onto 16
> pallets and sold it to some people "from China". He said some of
> it was "never taken out of its original crate". Please give me a
> second to cause bodily harm to myself. :-(
>
> The first cool thing I found was a set of old air traffic control
> radar stations. They had been out there a *while* and weren't in
> good condition at all, but they were cool to look at.
>
> I found the twisted remnants of what was apparently an old Four
> Phase switches-and-blinkenlights mini. It looked like it had been
> out there for several years also. Underneath the layer of grime,
> the central processor (about the same size as a BA11 box) seemed
> mostly intact except for a missing faceplate. Anyone know what set
> of computers this could be? Even though it's hosed, is it a rare
> enough find that I should buy it and salvage what I can?
>
> Next find was called a Raytheon 703 Central Processor. It looks
> like it has light-up pushbuttons instead of LED/lamps and switches.
> >From the lights it looks like it has a 16-bit word size and 15-bit
> addresses. Anyone know what this is? It looks to be in decent
> condition. Should I pick it up?
>
> I found several highly OEM PDP-11 systems that looked like they
> were some kind of radar controller computer. Unfortunately, the
> cabinets looked like they had been picked up by the nearby crane
> and dropped to their present location (i.e., smashed to hell).
> I'll investigate further when I can bring a can of bug spray to
> take out the integrated hornet nests.
>
> Final find was a set of MicroPDP-11 BA23s, in various states from
> complete to completely stripped.
>
> --
> Jeffrey S. Sharp
> jss_at_ou.edu
Received on Mon Jul 02 2001 - 18:43:07 BST